CONFESSIONS OF A PESKY MOSQUITO

We love when you work up a sweat.

You think we’re drawn by the aroma of your “sweet blood,” but it’s really the carbon dioxide you exhale that makes us beeline towards you. The harder you breathe, the more CO2 you emit, so you’re especially attractive after a jog. 

Love beer?So do some of us. 

It’s crazy, but we can tell when you've been drinking because your skin chemistry changes, and it lures us in. 

Pregnant? Yum.

If you’re a woman who’s expecting, you emit more carbon dioxide and your abdomen has a higher temperature than when you’re not pregnant, drawing some of us right to you. Sorry, baby.

Hate getting bitten up? Blame the ladies. 

We don’t like to admit this, but male mosquitoes do not drink human blood: They get all their nutrition from plant nectar. Our females need your blood, which contains a protein that helps our eggs develop. After we have a blood meal, we can lay anywhere from 100 to 400 eggs. People fear our ladies so much that researchers in Britain recently claimed to have found a method to make us breed only males. 

If your garden is well tended, we won’t like it as much. 

We like to hang out in thick, overgrown vegetation. The darker and more humid, the better. If you keep your lawn and bushes trimmed, it won’t be very appealing to us. Removing puddles of stagnant water is also a great way to repel us—that’s where we like to lay our eggs. 

Smelly feet are simply delicious.  

In fact, scientists have shown that we find your foot ten times more alluring than cheese (but really our favourite body part is your hand). 

To evade us at a party, don’t be a wallflower. 

When we smell a huge mass of carbon dioxide, we fly towards it; after we get there, it’s easier to attack the people on the perimeter of the group than those in the centre.

Got those CO2-emitting traps? Great! 

You may think you’re outsmarting us with these devices, which emit carbon dioxide to lure us into a trap. But they may attract more of us than they are able to trap, increasing our presence. Bug zappers aren't effective either: Only a fraction of the pests they kill are mosquitoes. 

We make room for all to feed. 

Our dengue-causing brethren, the Aedes aegypti, bite mostly during the day, and the malaria-transmitting Anopheles attack from dusk to dawn. That way, we all survive.

We love moderate temperatures. 

That’s why you find so many of us in India and other tropical countries. In a 40-degree C summer, we too prefer an air-conditioned room—we have better chances of survival—but we tend to become a bit inactive when it’s cold.